Canadians Investigate Sandy Winick Associates

The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) prosecution of Sandy Winick and eight co-conspirators for financial crimes, announced in August 2013, has sparked considerable interest among penny stock observers. According to regulators, for more than a decade, Winick created, and sometimes hijacked, dozens of shell companies, eventually pumping and dumping most of them. In the process, he and his alleged partners in crime raked in at least $140 million.

The Ontario Securities Commission (“OSC”) has been investigating Winick and his associates, some of them not yet targeted by the DOJ, for several years.

One of those associates is Kolt Curry, who formed and operated American Heritage Stock Transfer Inc. (Ontario). Curry was arrested in New Jersey in August, and has been denied bail as a flight risk. His father, Gregory Curry, was arrested in Thailand and, like Winick, is awaiting extradition to the United States.

American Heritage was created in 2005, and was used, among other things, to facilitate illegal stock sales by Winick and the other perpetrators. In November of that year, Curry appointed his wife, Laura Mateyak, to serve as president, secretary, and general manager. Mateyak had signing authority on the company’s accounts, and claimed to be its sole director, administrative officer, and chairman of the board. Evidently she agreed to whatever her husband asked her to do.

At an OSC hearing held ten days ago, the Commission heard testimony about and from Mateyak, who has two children and is pregnant with a third. She has no job, and her bank account was frozen in connection with the OSC investigation. The OSC claims that she was an important part of the scam.

OSC attorney Cameron Watson said: “She is a critical piece of the scheme. It couldn’t have proceeded in the way it did without her involvement. She, in some ways, is the lynchpin of the entire operation.” The OSC seeks an administrative penalty of $20,000 and a five year ban on acting as an officer or director of a public company. The Commission also seeks a penalty of $100,000 against Kolt Curry, as well as $55,000 in investigation costs.

Mateyak’s lawyer, Jeffrey Larry, describes what she did as a “due diligence failure at its highest,” apparently asserting that she declined to take any interest in what the men in her life were up to, and passively agreed to whatever they suggested.

When asked what she had learned from the experience, Mateyak said, “I will never put my name on anything I haven’t read, no matter who asks me to do it. I will be more smart next time.” To date, neither Mateyak nor her husband has been charged with securities fraud by the OSC.